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Gary and Debbie Leary were greeted with a parade of cars as neighbors welcomed them home in Rochester's 19th Ward on April 4, 2020. The Learys' cruise ship was stuck at sea after multiple passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. W

Gary and Debbie Leary were greeted with a parade of cars as neighbors welcomed them home in Rochester's 19th Ward on April 4, 2020. The Learys' cruise ship was stuck at sea after multiple passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. W

Gary and Debbie Leary were greeted with a parade of cars as neighbors welcomed them home in Rochester's 19th Ward on April 4, 2020. The Learys' cruise ship was stuck at sea after multiple passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. W

Gary and Debbie Leary were greeted with a parade of cars as neighbors welcomed them home in Rochester's 19th Ward on April 4, 2020. The Learys' cruise ship was stuck at sea after multiple passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. W

Gary and Debbie Leary were greeted with a parade of cars as neighbors welcomed them home in Rochester's 19th Ward on April 4, 2020. The Learys' cruise ship was stuck at sea after multiple passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. W

Gary and Debbie Leary were greeted with a parade of cars as neighbors welcomed them home in Rochester's 19th Ward on April 4, 2020. The Learys' cruise ship was stuck at sea after multiple passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. W

Gary and Debbie Leary were greeted with a parade of cars as neighbors welcomed them home in Rochester's 19th Ward on April 4, 2020. The Learys' cruise ship was stuck at sea after multiple passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. W

Gary and Debbie Leary were greeted with a parade of cars as neighbors welcomed them home in Rochester's 19th Ward on April 4, 2020. The Learys' cruise ship was stuck at sea after multiple passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. W

Gary and Debbie Leary were greeted with a parade of cars as neighbors welcomed them home in Rochester's 19th Ward on April 4, 2020. The Learys' cruise ship was stuck at sea after multiple passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. W

Gary and Debbie Leary were greeted with a parade of cars as neighbors welcomed them home in Rochester's 19th Ward on April 4, 2020. The Learys' cruise ship was stuck at sea after multiple passengers had tested positive for COVID-19. W

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Freed from the passenger ship the Zaandam, Gary and Debbie Leary returned to a very different world Friday.

Parking lots were empty. At the airport in Atlanta, plane after plane sat idle, unused.

"There was tail after tail after tail after tail," Leary said Saturday of the abundance of Delta Airlines jets at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

The Learys left in early March on a South American cruise before the worst of COVID-19 began to settle in.

After being stuck at sea, with the Zaandam and another Holland America cruise ship were refused docking at multiple countries, the Learys returned to Rochester late Friday and were met at the Rochester airport with a limousine sent by Holland America to take them the short distance to their 19th Ward home.

"I slept until 11 this morning," Gary Leary said in a telephone interview around 2 p.m. Saturday. "It was kind of a release of tension."

Gary and Debbie Leary in Hawaii(Photo: Provided photo)

Shortly after the interview, the Learys were greeted Saturday with a parade of cars of neighbors welcoming them home. They live in a long-established city neighborhood, where a number of families have resided for decades and are particularly close friends.

The plight of the Zaandam and the second ship, the Rotterdam, became international news as the ships were denied locations to stop in recent weeks. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was at first unwilling to allow the ship to dock in Florida but, apparently after conversations with President Trump, a plan was negotiated.

Gary Leary said Saturday that he and his wife and other Americans disembarked in Fort Lauderdale Thursday, checked in at Customs, where masked agents reviewed their passports then sent them back to the ship for the night.

The next morning Holland America had left champagne at their doors, and the captain held a toast over the speaker system.

More then 200 people then left the ship, and traveled by motorcade — with media filming from rooftops — to the airport. There, they boarded an airplane in a remote area, flew to Atlanta, transferred to another remote airport location, and got onboard a plane to Rochester.

"There were eight passengers and three stewardesses," Leary said of the flight to Rochester. The others had not been on the cruise ships.

On Saturday, amid the welcoming from neighbors — there were balloons at their house and a full refrigerator — the Learys finally got something they direly needed: "I think I'm on my third or fourth cup of coffee," Gary Leary said.

A cruise ship that's been floating at sea with coronavirus patients aboard for two weeks has finally been allowed to dock in Florida. (April 2)
AP Domestic

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South Florida officials say 1,200 from two docked cruise ships will fly to their home countries. Those who are mildly ill will be quarantined on board and some are being hospitalized locally. (April 3)
AP Domestic